When I have too much to say, I have no listener. It becomes immensely difficult for a talkative me to keep my thoughts to myself. I have to express it and this happens to be an ideal platform for me to do so.

My brother who has just returned from his Bangkok vacation, was sharing his experiences with us when suddenly the topic shifted to how people in Bangkok follow traffic rules and how we are in India. He said people in Bangkok would never honk unnecessarily and would always follow the rules unlike us. This conversation turned out to be a perfect beginning for the second part of my series: We shall not listen.

Honestly speaking I myself am a very indisciplined person. I cross the roads even if the cars have not halted or would never follow the zebra crossing (actually zebra crossing lines have faded in my city, you can barely see it). So basically, I am not the right person to write about it. Infact once when I was in 2nd standard, I did not look at the rickshaw coming from the opp direction, I simply crossed the road. The rickshawala got down and slapped me hard across the cheeks for being negligent. Not that I learnt any lesson but yes since then I developed immense hatred for rickshawalas despite being a rickshaw addict ;-)

So note to myself: Cross the road only when the vehicles halt.Look aage peeche upar neeche and daaye baaye.

When we talk about following traffic rules, it is not just meant for pedestrians. Motorists infact have a greater responsibility because if they injure a pedestrian or a fellow motorist; the public would happily pounce and vent their frustration on the poor motorist.

My brother says every country has a stringent law for traffic regulation, which our country lacks. Give the traffic cop 100 rupees extra and you are left scot-free. Worse are the hit and run cases due to drunken driving (e.g. actor Salman Khan), you kill some innocent people and give some compensation to the family (in some cases not even a compensation) and you are left on bail. Would your compensation bring back the family's loved ones? The punishments are bad and ancient, so what do we do about it?

We can only follow the rules. Is it easy? No it is not. You are forced to follow the herd mentality, for example: you have a speed limit for driving in a highway, sea link, normal roads etc which needs to be followed, but how many of us follow it?. Ek ne tez se car kya chalaya everybody follows the same without even caring about the speed limit and incase some one follows the speed limit, they are showered with colorful verbal abuses for creating problems in 'smooth functioning of traffic'.

People are not the real problem, the problem is with the punishments, they need to be made really stringent, so stringent that people think twice before flouting the rules. For instance, make drunken driving a non bailable offence or if You exceed the speed limit, go drive your car in Kanjurmarg or Powai during peak hours for one whole year (you will forget what rash driving is). Kuch bhi karo but please ensure that there is smooth flow of traffic, you have no idea how scared senior citizens, physically challenged people are when they have to cross the roads.

At any point of time if I sound like a Hindu Fanatic, please pardon me. Please do not tell the Mumbai cops to attack me with tear gas. Also please do not give my blog link to Digvijay Singh else he would accuse me of being a part of RSS. These are just my views and you have the right to agree and disagree with it. Phool aur Kaante accepted.

Ok now that I have made myself clear, I will start writing now. I know criticizing someone after his soul departs is a bad thing, but I could not stop myself from expressing my views after reading the opinions of (so-called) liberal people in the newspaper.

On thursday, India's Picasso passed away in London at the ripe age of 96.

Now, honestly I never understood modern or abstract art.

So obviously, since I never understood Husain's paintings; I never understood the hype made out of his paintings.

For me-

1) The aunties who made rangolis and kolams outside their home were better artists.

2) RK Lakshman's 'You Said It' was 1000 times better as compared to his weird creatures on the canvas.

3) Art is something which touches your heart or something that we understand.

4) Da Vinci's The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa were perfect work of art.

5) A random horse (which looks like a donkey) running across the canvas or nude goddesses were not a form of art.

Besides the fact that I never understood his paintings, I was also against all the hype created about his exile by the media and the so-called liberal people. He had committed a mistake- won't call it grave because he did not murder anybody. But yes, the mistake was unpardonable.

India is a secular country, which means that everyone has the right to practice and follow the religion of their choice. One is expected to behave properly and not interfere or hurt the sentiments of the people belonging to other religions. Hindus are in majority and we worship every god and their manifestations devotedly. Obviously, no person would like to see their Goddess or Bharat Mata in nude. Saraswati Devi is goddess of knowledge and we have always seen her in white sari with a veena in her hand. Obviously, you won't like to see the devi in a nude form. Rationalists may argue that how do you know how Saraswati Devi looks, have you seen her? No, none of us have seen her but definitely none of us would like to see her nude. Call us regressive, but the truth is we cannot see our beautifully adorned devi in such a form.

MF Husain, like every Indian citizen was bestowed upon with the Freedom of Expression. But he, forgot that there is a thin line between expression of thoughts and hurting the sentiments of people. You are given the freedom of expression but you must respect it and use it responsibly. He crossed the line and faced the wrath from the so-called Hindu fanatics. It is very easy to call some groups as Extremists or fanatics, but spare a thought and tell me: were they wrong in revolting against such paintings? Maybe their way of revolting was wrong but certainly not their intention. Being resilient is a good characteristic, but allowing people to take your sentiments for granted is not good. I don't support fanaticism. But I don't know I did not feel as though India has lost a gem. I felt a great void when Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Uncle Pai passed away early this year (they were not my relatives but I felt we lost a gem) but did not feel so for Maqbool Fida Husain.

But having said that, I would thank him because the beautiful song Chillama Chilakama would have not existed had he not made the movie Meenaxi- the three cities :). May his soul Rest in Peace.

P.S: I remember that I had promised to write about traffic rules. Will come up with it within a week. Promise! Gentlewoman promise :)

About me

Hi, i am Gayathri Vishwanathan. No not even distantly related to Vishwanathan Anand.
Wanted to be a journalist, but ended up in a usual corporate job.
Mundane activities of life take up my time, and when I reach my saturation point, I try to calm myself either by listening to music or through writing.
Let me warn you, my blogs are nothing like what others write, it is boring and sometimes tiresome (not to forget the thousands of spelling and grammatical errors I make), however I write with the intention to express myself and to strike a personal chord with everyone who reads this blog.
Hope to see you here baar baar lagataar :)